BubbleStream

John Rhoades

How the West Was Saved

Synopsis

Nevada 1882. The daughter of Nevada gubernatorial candidate Trent Slaughter vanishes, stolen, the evidence suggests... by demons! Now it is left to soul hunter Jim Mercantile to track the girl and bring her back. But as Jim begins his investigation, he quickly discovers that more is at stake than the fate of one missing girl. A demonic contract is being forged for the heart and soul of America. And Jim has only until the polls open on election day to rescue the girl, or the gates of Hell will open and destruction will be unleashed upon the Earth.

Author Biography

Author Insight

Last Chapter Standing: A Study in Inefficiency

I started "How the West Was Saved" in the early 90s, if by "started" you accept a page and a half of free prose in which nothing happens except a cowboy arguing with his talking horse. But then after that page and a half, I realized that I had no idea where this thing was going, so I shelved the "short story"... "for now." So ten years later, I find myself in the early 2000s attending a creative writing class and digging through old computer files in search of something to use as a writing assignment. And lo and behold, if I don't come across this story. I like the writing, so I decide to develop it. It wasn't long before I found myself looking at a novel, not a short story. But the resulting novel was written without an outline to guide it, so it had a lot of holes in it. So again I lay it to rest. Several years pass, and I decide to bring the book out again. This time, I do it right, with an outline. The result is a practically new book. This excerpt here comes from the only chapter from the first draft to make it more or less in its original form into the final book.

Book Excerpt

How the West Was Saved

Chapter 10:

Eulogy for the Living

I pulled rein and allowed my gaze to settle on the broken piece of driftwood thrust into the ground before me, the word “Eulogy” etched into its surface. The town that lay some hundred yards or so farther on wasn’t in much better condition. The buildings were old, an odd collection of patched together pieces of stray lumber. Some of my eastern friends might have called it eclectic. I called it ugly. Sin was always ugly, and Eulogy was the biggest, ugliest cesspool of corruption the West had ever seen. It also held the answers to Chastity’s abduction, which meant I was going in whether my companions liked it or not.

Of course, they didn’t like it.

“I ain’t going,” Jack said from the seat of his mule as I urged Typhoid forward.

“I didn’t ask you to.” I didn’t bother to turn in my saddle. For some reason, Jack had decided to attach himself to me, and it was an attachment I didn’t much care for. I had no need for a sidekick at this point in my career, and I said as much to Jack.

“Sidekick? That’s what you think, that I want to be the sidekick of some addle-headed tenderfoot with a target slung across his back?”

I shrugged.

Jack forced his mule between me and the town, bringing a derisive snort from Typhoid. “You mind?” he asked.

“Yes, I mind. I mind that you’re taking your master to get killed.”

Typhoid bared his teeth, and the mule skittered out of the way. “Master, indeed,” he harrumphed before resuming his path to Eulogy. This time Jack didn’t follow. He just fumed from behind, cussing and hollering like I’d just stolen his virgin daughter. I chose to ignore him, setting Typhoid straight for the heart of town.